Igor Delovski Board

[delovski]

Vista and XP themes

"No way to be sure if you don't try it. Can't remember what it was but
even though my app looks ok in XP I found some small thing that was not
right in Vista Beta 1.
Also the installer complained halfway (something about not being able to
overwrite some files...)"

[Mujo]

Making Your Application a Windows Vista Application: The Top Ten Things to Do

"The Microsoft Windows Vista wave of products and technologies renews Microsoft's focus on enabling the development of modern applications, whether they are existing applications written to Win32, the unmanaged programming model for the Microsoft Windows operating system, or new applications taking full advantage of WinFX, the managed programming model for Microsoft Windows Vista. Microsoft is doing this by focusing on three main concepts..."

[delovski]

"Over at the WinFS Team Blog, Quentin Clark states that Microsoft no
longer plans to ship WinFS as a standalone software component. Instead,
portions of the underlying technology will be included with the next release
of SQL Server (codename Katmai) and ADO.NET. Does this spell the end
for the true relational storage paradigm that Microsoft has been promising
since Windows 95?"

Slashdot: WinFS Gets the Axe

[delovski]

"I think it's a shame it's been canned because it always struck me as one
of the most interesting ideas that was in the original PDC 03 vision of
Longhorn. It doesn't look like Microsoft are ever going to have a storage
strategy that they stick with."

On JoS: WinFS is dead

[delovski]

Jeffrey Tan, Microsoft Online Community Support:

"I recommend you post your question to the Vista UI development
forum below: UI Development for Windows Vista"

[delovski]

"From an innovation perspective, Whidbey is almost certain to be the last
full-blown feature version of Windows Forms.  Any post-Whidbey release is
likely to contain only tactical features, bug fixes and other infrastructure to
support the next version of VS that will run on Longhorn."

Mike Harsh: Is Windows Forms Dead?

[delovski]

Dan Appleman: Windows Forms to Developers: I’m not Dead Yet

"My point is this: you have a huge number of Windows programmers,
who grew up and know User32, how it plays with VB6, MFC, ATL and now
Windows Forms. Do you really think they?re all going to just jump to
Avalon overnight? Over a year? Over 10 years?"

[delovski]

Slashdot: Inside Vista's Image-Based Install Process

"Vista's installation process is dramatically different from any previous
version of Windows: rather than being an 'installer,' the install DVD is
actually a preinstalled copy of Windows that simply gets decompressed
onto your PC."

[Marko]

USER and GDI compatibility in Windows Vista

"My colleague Nick Kramer who works over on WPF has the first of what
will be a series of articles on USER and GDI compatibility in Windows Vista."

[admin]

Microsoft Invites Black Hats into Vista

"Microsoft is inviting hackers to 'Take Your Best Shot' at Vista. 'You need
to touch it, feel it,' Andrew Cushman, Microsoft's director of security
outreach, said during a talk at the Black Hat computer-security conference.
'We're here to show our work.'"

From the article:
"A security team with oversight of every Microsoft product — from its Xbox
video game console to its Word program for creating documents — has
broad authority to block shipments until they pass security tests. The
company also hosts two internal conferences a year so some of the world's
top security experts can share the latest research on computer attacks."

[delovski]

Slashdot: Vista the Last of Its Kind

"The problem is that the operating system's increasing complexity is
making it ever more difficult for enterprises to implement migrations, and
impossible for Microsoft to release regular updates. This, in turn, stands in
the way of Microsoft's efforts to push companies to subscription licensing.
The answer, according to Gartner, is virtualization, which is built into newer
chips from Intel and AMD, and has become mainstream for x86 servers
through the efforts of VMware."

[delovski]

JoS: The Vista Paradigm

"So it appears to me Vista brings with itself a new application
development paradigm where developers can code and ui designers can
work independantly."

[delovski]

Paul Thurrott's Super Site for Windows:

1. Five Great Features in Windows Vista RC1

"There are all kinds of great new features in Vista. [...] here are five of
my favorites, in no particular order. These aren't necessary the "five best"
or "top five" new features in Windows Vista RC1. They're just five
absolutely great features."

2. The Dark Side of Windows Vista RC1

"I could go on and, heck, maybe I will in the future. The point here isn't
to rant, or to prove that Windows Vista is worthless, but rather to highlight
some issues that I have with this release in the hope that some of them
can be fixed or at least addressed."

[delovski]

Raymond Chen:

If you ask a Yes/No question, make sure the user also knows what happens when they say No

"Window Vista's new Task Dialog makes it easier for programs to make
it clearer to users what will happen as the result of pushing a button on a
dialog box. Instead of being limited to just "Yes" and "No", you can put
more meaningful text on the buttons such as "Save" and "Don't Save", or
you could use command buttons and provide an explanatory sentence for
each option. "

[Quazar]

Windows Vista: The “choose your own adventure” UI

"I have taken the liberty of taking 28 screenshots to compare the 4
different interfaces available in Windows Vista: Aero Glass, Vista
Standard, Vista Basic and Windows Classic. These screenshots were
taken on the same applications and layouts to give you a feel of the exact
changes it makes to an user experience."

[XNote]

On Slashdot: Vista Shell Team now Blogging

"Have you ever wanted to ask the people behind the Vista UI exactly
what they were thinking when they did things like Flip 3D or the windows
that turn black when maximized? Want a last chance to complain directly
to the source about your favorite Vista UI glitch before it is foisted on you
and the rest of the world? Just wondering what sort of people work on
Windows all day? Well, look no further. The Windows Shell team now has
a blog site for your reading pleasure. Head over to Shell Revealed and
check it out."

[birdy num num]

Digg: Microsoft Asks For Vista UI Critiques

"Microsoft has opened a forum to discuss the Vista GUI. I doubt they'll
make any significant changes, but at least we can let them know what we
really think."

[Albert]

Slashdot: A Mac Fan's Take On Vista

"Ken Mingis has been running Vista on a MacBook Pro for a couple of
weeks. Highlights from his review: 'Apple's UI is called Aqua. Microsoft
calls its interface Aero. Hmmmm... Gadgets and widgets. What's that line
about imitation being the sincerest form of flattery?... The UAC
implementation in Vista is heavy-handed and intrusive — it halts what
you're doing, even if you want to do something as simple as change your
clock. My sense here is that Microsoft has been criticized so often for
security vulnerabilities that it decided to club users over the head with its
new operating system-in-lockdown-mode...

I'm more enamored of Vista's Flip 3D feature, which basically takes all of
the open windows on your desktop, stands them up on end and stacks
them in a way that you can cycle through to the one you want to use. It's
similar to what Apple's Expose does... Vista's method wins on aesthetics.' "

[Rista]

Seven things to love about networking in Windows Vista

"Vista is the first version of Windows created for a world where
networks and wireless access are ubiquitous. One of Microsoft's goals in
creating Windows Vista was to take advantage of that constant
connectivity.

Did Microsoft get it right? In a lot of ways, I think it did, and I found
plenty of reasons why Windows Vista represents a breakthrough in
Windows-based networking. So here are seven things you'll love about
networking with Vista.

By the way, I won't be letting Microsoft off the hook -- in a follow-up
article, I'll clue you on in things you'll hate about Vista and networking as
well."

[Gnome]

JoS: Where to Install Software on Vista

"The issue we are encountering is, even if the (standard non-admin)
user runs the installer as admin, and installs the software, the application
itself has no rights to actually WRITE anything to the filesystem. We use
the (widely accepted?) install into c:\program files\ method. Our
conclusion is (correct me if wrong), you need to run an application as
admin to write to the c:\program files\ folder."

[Gnome]

JoS: Starting new project - do I care about Vista?


"There is a compatibility feature: Vista stores the files an app writes in its
Program Files Folder in the App Data folder transparently.

It works well, but you still have to take into consideration these
requirements. It really seems MS did it correctly this time, and most user
will start using the restricted account."

[Ike]

Jeff Atwood: Why Does Vista Use All My Memory?

"Those figures explain why I only have 6 megabytes of "free" memory
in Windows Vista. Vista is trying its darndest to pre-emptively populate
every byte of system memory with what it thinks I might need next. It's
running a low-priority background task that harvests previously accessed
data from the disk and plops it into unused system memory. They even
have a fancy marketing name for it-- SuperFetch!"

[delovski]

Digg: Microsoft working on a Secret Vista Product: "The Best Windows Application"

"Keep your eyes peeled for some big software announcements to coincide
with Windows Vista ’s release. Microsoft said several developers are
working on products to make the most of Vista’s advances, and we were
told that Microsoft bigwig Jim Allchin, co-president of its platforms and
services division, described one as "the best Windows application"

[Ike]

Here is the official Microsoft "life cycle policy" page.

http://www.microsoft.com/windows/lifecycle/default.mspx

It states:

Windows XP Direct OEM and Retail License Availability (end date) = 12 Months
Following Windows Vista General Availability

[delovski]

JoS: Will I lose my win32 code on vista?

"I've spent considerable time learning the Win32 API i.e. CreateWindowEx,
datatypes, common controls, SetWindowHook and lots of other concepts
and tricks (primarily in pure C++).

Now, is Vista (WPF or .NET 3) built upon this API, or is this API going to be
a wrapper over .Net3."

[Ike]

Digg: PC World - Everything You Need to Know About Windows Vista

"It's big, it's ambitious, and it's (finally) here. We give you the bottom
line on what Vista does better than XP, where it needs improvement--and
how to perform the upgrade, step-by-step."

[delovski]

My notebook running XP has wireless issues after the hibernation - some
downloads contain bad data that is never reported as such, so IE shows a
lot of corrupted pictures and if I download an exe it fails to run. That is
why I stopped using hibernation.

Well, Vista won't change much in that deparment!

Slashdot: Vista an Uneasy Sleeper

"'One thing we just can't wrap our mind about is the terrible, broken,
and completely pitiful support for waking Vista up from a Deep Sleep or
hibernation.' Any time you attempt to wake Vista up from Hibernation
or "Deep Sleep" (S3-induced sleep mode), it dies. It's either a BSOD, or a
driver error, or a broken network, no DWM, lack of sound... the list goes
on, and on. So much for an operating system to "power" the future! (No
pun intended!) That's with properly-signed drivers and no buggy software
on multiple PCs..."

[delovski]

Vista compatibility: DevReadiness.org

"Welcome to DevReadiness.org - the community site dedicated to helping
you, the developer, get your applications ready for Windows Vista. Here
you will find easy ways for your existing  applications to be good citizens
on the new platform and achieve the "Works with Windows Vista" designation."

[Ike]

Digg: BlackViper returns? Windows Vista Services breakdown

"Apparently, Windows Vista has around 130 Services?! Ouch. Site lists of
all vista services and which you can disable. Also has registry files for
backing out changes."

---

"Exercise great caution when fiddling with services in a new operating
system. If you insist on screwing around with them, I recommend that
you use msconfig (start > search > msconfig > enter) to use selective
startup to disable them for your next startup. Reboot, leave the msconfig
dialog that runs at startup in the background, and try to work with your
system. If it's unstable, just tell msconfig to boot normally next time and
you won't be any worse for the wear."

Windows Vista Services Registry Files

"Have you messed up your services and want to get back to factory spec?
Or do you want a way to play around with various configurations and be able
to undo them if it doesn't work out? Well, look no further! Here are the
default configuration Service configuration files for all versions of Vista,
as well as files for the other configurations I display.

Note: When you run the Registry file, you may get a note saying "Some
keys are open by the system or other processes." Some processes are
not settable by running Registry scripts, even in safe mode. It is a bit of a
pain, but all other services are set properly."

[delovski]

Mark Russinovich: Inside the Windows Vista Kernel: Part 1

"This is the first part of a series on what's new in the Windows Vista kernel.
In this issue, I'll look at changes in the areas of processes and threads, and
in I/O. Future installments will cover memory management, startup and
shutdown, reliability and recovery, and security."

Part 2: "This time I'll cover advances in the way Windows Vista manages memory,
as well as major improvements to system startup, shutdown, and power
management"

[delovski]

Mike Fullerton: Windows Vista RTM on my MacBook Pro using BootCamp 1.1.2

"This works great (so far Vista is fantastic), though some bravery is required
because you have to jump through some hoops to get the various hardware
pieces working correctly because the installer for the Windows drivers you
get with BootCamp 1.1.2 is not compatible with Vista. D'oh! I'm going to try
to blog about these hoop jumps to help out other folks trying this. I have some
extra resources to draw on since I work at Microsoft and am a Macintosh
Business Unit alumni so hopefully I can mitigate some pain"

[delovski]

RC: Changes to power management in Windows Vista

"Programs get two seconds to clean up, and then that's it. The laptop is going
into standby, ready or not."

[delovski]

Windows Vista articles,

A total of 256 windows vista tutorials and articles available , like Upgrading to
Windows Vista, System requirements

[delovski]

developer.com - Making a Pre-Vista Application Vista Compliant, by Matt Goebel

"If your application requires administrative rights to perform most if not all
of its not common actions, include a manifest file with your application to
request elevated privileges upon startup. Your user will only receive one
consent UI dialog upon startup, but will receive it each time they start the
application."

These locations now require administrative rights for write access:

* C:\ (root)
* C:\Program Files
* \Windows directory and all sub directories
* HKLM registry writes